Chapter XIII.

How spirit cannot be penetrated by spirit, and how God
alone is incorporeal.

For even if spirit is mingled
with this crass and solid matter; viz., flesh (as very easily happens),
should we therefore believe that it can be united to the soul, which is
in like manner spirit, in such a way as to make it also receptive in
the same way of its own nature: a thing which is possible to the
367Trinity alone, which is so
capable of pervading every intellectual nature, that it cannot only
embrace and surround it but even insert itself into it and, incorporeal
though it is, be infused into a body? For though we maintain that some
spiritual natures exist, such as angels, archangels and the other
powers, and indeed our own souls and the thin air, yet we ought
certainly not to consider them incorporeal. For they have in their own
fashion a body in which they exist, though it is much finer than our
bodies are, in accordance with the Apostle’s words when he says:
“And there are bodies celestial, and bodies terrestrial:”
and again: “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual
body;”147114711 Cor. xv. 40, 44. from which it is
clearly gathered that there is nothing incorporeal but God alone, and
therefore it is only by Him that all spiritual and intellectual
substances can be pervaded, because He alone is whole and everywhere
and in all things, in such a way as to behold and see the thoughts of
men and their inner movements and all the recesses of the soul; since
it was of Him alone that the blessed Apostle spoke when he said:
“For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any
two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit
and of the joints and marrow; and is a discerner of the thoughts and
intents of the heart; and there is no creature invisible in His sight,
but all things are naked and open to His eyes.”14721472Heb. iv. 12, 13. And the blessed David says: “Who
fashioneth their hearts one by one;” and again: “For He
knoweth the secrets of the heart;”14731473Ps.
xxxii. (xxxiii.) 15; xliii. (xliv.) 22. and Job too: “Thou who alone
knowest the hearts of men.”147414742 Chron. vi. 30.